Painted Birdhouses

A few weeks back I saw this awesome pink bird on Lynett's blog and decided I must have it. She told me she got it at Michael's, so off I went. Luckily they had it! But then I had to figure out what to do with it... Not wanting to steal her whole idea, I came home with two of these from their unfinished wood section:

Using supplies I already had (wood stain from this project, craft brushes, paint from the front door, and leftover ceiling paint), I turned them into this:

FYI, if you are detail oriented this project will take you for.ev.er. However, if you are good with spraypainting them, distressing, and calling it a day, it could take you an hour. I chose to stain the roofs and bases carefully and the only small brush I had was like 10 hairs, so it took me like three hourse just to do the stained areas... 

Did you notice the base on the left-hand one?

It's the base for my broken candleholder! I love being able to utilize stuff I already have on hand. I did spray this with white Rustoleum pray paint. Then I just hot glued them into place:

I thought it was pretty clever to paint the one with the front door the same color as our own front door, but now I'm not sure I like the color inside the house. I may repaint it blue or gray.

Although it does coordinate with the beak on the pink bird, lol!


What do you think? Have you started crafting for Spring yet?

Do you WUSLU?

Do you get the emails for WUSLU Daily Deals? Yasmin has a new special item everyday and shipping is always $5.00. A lot of the items are too far on the "Shabby" end of "Shabby Chic" for me, but they are always cute. When these Turned Pillar Holders showed up in my inbox I had to have them:

Unfortunately when they arrived, the large one was broken:

I have no idea how it could have broken, they were both packaged very well, surrounded by bubble wrap and in small enough individual boxes to prevent moving around inside the larger box... But it was shattered, in about 6 pieces. I could have cried. I immediately emailed Yasmin to ask if there was anything she could do, as it does state on the website that all sales are final. Luckily she got back to me quickly and said she was sending me a replacement! I didn't have to pay shipping again or anything.

I love them. They are hefty and weighted and just the perfect size to hold my beloved Bath & Body Works candles. In person they are a wonderful bronzey color, not too wintery and perfect year round!

She also told me it was unnecessary to send the broken one back, so I figured I should make use of it. Come back tomorrow and I'll show you what I did with it! Waste not, want not.

All in all, ordering from WUSLU was a great experience and I would definitely buy from her again!

Legal Crap: I was not compensated in any way for this post. I just thought I should share a good shopping experience. 

 Have you ever ordered from WUSLU? Or another daily deals website? Have you had a good online shopping experience recently you'd like to share? How about a bad one?

Um... What?!

Okay, who forgot to tell Mother Nature that it's Spring?!

 

How's the weather wherever you are?

Linky Party Recap

Since my Linky Party was really more of a Linky Gettogether, I figured I would go ahead and feature all the projects submitted.

Esudano showed us her fab backsplash DIY, which she did all by herself! A project this detailed, especially one involving tile, would have me running for the Mr. faster than you could say "grout".

Pretty great, eh? I love the colors she chose.

The Cape on the Corner decided to showcase her ridiculously amazing sunroom makeover:

That skylight is to die for. And don't you just love that white chair in the corner? There are a pair of them and they are from a yard sale! Why don't I ever find stuff that cute at yard sales?

Living in Lovely LaLaLand is in the middle of a bathroom remodel. Look at this cute secret note they left for future homeowners to discover:

I would love to find something like that while remodeling our house!

Check out all the hard work and elbow grease that went into this free desk re-do at Home in the Country:

I love that they actually took the time and effort to strip it down and refinish it, as opposed to just slapping some new paint over the old. It looks beautiful, no?

And last, but not least, from my neck of the woods (sort of), a master bedroom breakdown over at The Pendleton House:

I wish my closet were that big! I can't wait to see how it all comes together.

Thanks for joining up ladies! 

T.V. Frame Follow-Up

A few people have asked how we keep the frame attached to the television, so I thought I'd share our technique. When the Mr. built the frame he measured and measured and measured again, so that the dimensions were dead on. Then he routered the interior and the frame would literally pop onto the television and stay put.

This worked perfectly for about 4 months, then the humidity changes in the house started causing the frame to warp at an alarming rate.

You can see in the above pic that the frame does not lie flush to the floor.

It's really surprising it got this warped. The Mr. not only glued the corners, he used those wiggly frame grippers to keep it all together...

It wasn't gripping well anymore and the top left and bottom right corners weren't flush with the t.v. anymore. He was afraid it was going to fall off eventually, so we took it down and started brainstorming. We kept making it harder than it needed to be, thinking about fabricating corners to screw behind the back of the t.v. and attaching leather straps to keep it in place.

In the end, we used D-rings and Velcro.

You'll need 4 D-ring brackets (ours came with the screws) and a length of Velcro. How much Velcro you need depends entirely on how big you t.v. is. I also used a manual pre-driller thingie since you don't really want to use your drill for such delicate work.

You still have to be careful with it though.

Drilled right through it. Whoops.

I approximated where the thickest part of the frame was, then pre-drilled the first set of holes. I then measured from those holes to the edge of the frame to determine where the other three needed to go.

I sewed the Velcro through two of the D-rings, just to make sure it would hold.

I also sewed a fold about an inch wide on the other end so the grippy side would be facing the fuzzy side once it was ready to be attached.

Then I screwed them all on.

Do you see my awesome P.J.'s? They have gnomes on them. My favorites. 

I don't have any pictures of us putting it back on the wall because it took all 4 of our hands to do. Once you get it up there, pull the trailing ends of the Velcro through the two remaining empty D-rings and pull tight. Ta - Da! That sucker ain't goin' nowhere.

Here's what it looks like from the side:

Eh, it's blurry, but you get the idea.

You wanna know what's pisses me off? See that antenna? I bought a new fangled, fancy, expensive television because I was under the impression that I would automatically get basic channels. We don't have cable, don't need cable, don't want cable. Or satellite. Or anything that could potentially cause me to be any lazier than I already am. It pisses me off that I spend a considerable amount of money on new HDTV technology and I still need rabbit ears to get basic channels. Even then we only get three channels... Really tv people?

Monkey Love

Apparently Dozer had suffered an injury to his right rear foot before we adopted him. The trauma had caused his foot to grow an additional toe. Weird, right? We called it his Tandem Toe, because it was actually attached to what would be your pinky toe. Recently the toe became irritated and swollen and our vet recommended removal. So poor Dozer had to have surgery Friday.

On our way home from the vet, still doped up on anesthesia.

Poor sad foot.

 In turn we spent the whole weekend doing mostly this:

and this:

Media Cabinet Before & After and a Linky Party!!

I wanted to share just the basics of our media cabinet makeover with you today, but I also want to include a little linky party, just for fun. See, I try to make sure I visit anyone who visits me and leaves a comment, but I would really like to try to visit every one of my followers at least once a week. I mean, I only have 69, it wouldn't be difficult. Except when I click on people, sometimes there are no website or blog links attached to their member board (or whatever it's called). I know a few of you, like Comeca, don't have blogs, but most do. So I thought I'd show you mine, if you show me yours! lol Link up with anything you've been working on, your favorite Before & After you've ever done, a room remodel, or just something you want to say... Whatever your little heart desires. You don't have to be a follower to join, I just thought this would be a good way for me to reconnect with some of my followers.

Without further ado, my media cabinet rehab.

BEFORE

AFTER

The built-in television had been removed a long time ago, but the sound components and all the electronics were still intact.

I rescued it from my grandparents basement with the hope that my electrician Mr. could fix it and get the record player to work, but they had cut through all the wires when they removed the television. So, I took all this junk out, primed it with oil-based Kilz, and painted it with a custom-mixed combo of BM White Dove (from the china cabinet) and Glidden Granite Gray (from the bedroom). You can hardly tell it has any gray in it, it's just not bright white. 

Here's an "in-progress" shot:

That was before I decided what to do behind the diamond wire grid on the front and sides. I could have left it open, but I wanted to use it for our surround-sound speakers. So I removed the speakers and the mesh from the existing backerboard (which had convenient holes for the sound to exit) and stapled on cheap light colored burlap from Hobby Lobby. It was $3.99/yard and I had a 40% off coupon. I bought two yards, but I'm not sure I even used a full yard.

I really like the texture it adds. A pattern would have been way too much with the chairs on either side, the eventual gallery wall behind, and the fireplace to the left. And I like the color - natural, neutral, but it doesn't disappear.

I'm not sure how I feel about the pink hardware, though:

The Mr. said it looks like a piece of furniture that should be on a My Little Ponies cartoon, or "you know, that Rainbow Bears show"... Um, Care Bears? Sometimes it is really weird being with someone from a totally different era. He likes the white, but maybe not the pink. I'm okay with that, I'm leaning toward black hardware. I would also love to do a silver leaf detail in all the grooves (not the front accordian grooves), but frankly it seems like a whole lotta work.

I love how a little white paint took it from super-crap 1970's:

to frilly Victorian:

Now it's your turn!

Have you finished any projects lately? Maybe cooked something extra yummy? Painted a room? Gotten a new dog? Had a baby? Whatever... Anything you want to share, link up and join the fun. I don't have a button, so you don't even have to mention this linky party in your blog, but you can. The party will be open to anyone through Tuesday, March 8th at midnight.